Joey Logano will start his first race as a Chase contender from pole position in the GEICO 400, after setting a new track record of 28.509s (189.414mph) to see off the challenge of his own Penske Racing team mate Brad Keselowski at the 1.5-mile Chicagoland Superspeedway.

It's Logano's second pole of 2013 and his seventh pole in 174 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races. His laptime beat the previous record set in July 2005 by Jimmie Johnson in July 2005 of 28.701s (188.147mph) and is the 15th track qualifying record broken this season with the Gen-6 race car.

"It feels good, it feels really good to be sitting up here and getting a pole," said Logano. "All of Penske Racing have been working their guts off, and it shows today when you have a Penske one‑two front starting positions like that. That's a really big deal for everybody that works at the shop. It shows.

"When you come to this point of the season, everyone pick it up a little bit if you get into this Chase," he added. "It's cool to see us pick it up and get a pole and have a fast enough race car to do this. I'm excited about it. I know this #22 team can win this championship if we keep doing what we've been doing over the past few weeks. I'm excited about it. I couldn't be more happy right now, so I'm ready to go."

"This is the week of teammates huh? It just keeps playing right along," observed reigning Cup champion Brad Keselowski, who missed the Chase and will not now be defending his title in this year's play-offs. "It was a decent lap for sure and the Penske cars, we have put a lot of effort into this weekend and getting the Chase started off on the right foot. I wish we were a part of it but it shows the speed we will have. I look forward to the next ten weeks and putting some wins on the board."

Keselowski and third place starter Juan Pablo Montoya are the potential non-Chase spoilers at the front, with Kasey Kahne the second Chase contender on the grid in fourth place. The third row of the grid sees Ricky Stenhouse Jr. start alongside newly-installed '13th man' in the 12-man Chase field Jeff Gordon who starts from sixth ahead Greg Biffle, Carl Edwards, Jimmie Johnson and Matt Kenseth.

Kyle Busch starts from 12th and his brother Kurt from 16th. Kevin Harvick lines up in 17th, alongside Dale Earnhardt Jr. with Ryan Newman qualifying in 20th and Clint Bowyer in 24th.

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